A Defense of Humanity in The Age of AI - The Atlantic

6/6/23, 8:32 AM A Defense of Humanity in the Age of AI - The Atlantic
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July/August 2023 Issue
IDEAS
IN DEFENSE OF HUMANITY
We need a cultural and philosophical movement to meet the rise of artificial
superintelligence.
By Adrienne LaFrance
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/07/generative-ai-human-culture-philosophy/674165/ 1/11
Illustration by Jo Imperio
JUNE 5, 2023, 7 AM ET SHARE SAVED STORIES REMOVE
A DV E RT I S E M E N T
O
n july 13, 1833, during a visit to the Cabinet of Natural History at the
Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, Ralph Waldo Emerson had an epiphany. Peering
at the museum’s specimens—butterflies, hunks of amber and marble, carved
seashells—he felt overwhelmed by the interconnectedness of nature, and humankind’s
place within it.
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The experience inspired him to write “The Uses of Natural History,” and to articulate
a philosophy that put naturalism at the center of intellectual life in a technologically
chaotic age—guiding him, along with the collective of writers and radical thinkers
known as transcendentalists, to a new spiritual belief system. Through empirical
observation of the natural world, Emerson believed, anyone could become “a definer
and map-maker of the latitudes and longitudes of our condition”—finding agency,
individuality, and wonder in a mechanized age.
America was crackling with invention in those years, and everything seemed to be
speeding up as a result. Factories and sugar mills popped up like dandelions,
steamships raced to and from American ports, locomotives tore across the land, the
telegraph connected people as never before, and the first photograph was taken,
forever altering humanity’s view of itself. The national mood was a mix of exuberance,
anxiety, and dread.
From the June 2018 issue: Henry A. Kissinger on AI and how the
Enlightenment ends
The flash of vision Emerson experienced in Paris was not a rejection of change but a
way of reimagining human potential as the world seemed to spin off its axis.
Emerson’s reaction to the technological renaissance of the 19th century is worth
revisiting as we contemplate the great technological revolution of our own century:
the rise of artificial superintelligence.
Even before its recent leaps, artificial intelligence has for years roiled the informational
seas in which we swim. Early disturbances arose from the ranking algorithms that
have come to define the modern web—that is, the opaque code that tells Google
which results to show you, and that organizes and personalizes your feeds on social
platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok by slurping up data about you as a
way to assess what to spit back out.
Now imagine this same internet infrastructure but with programs that communicate
with a veneer of authority on any subject, with the ability to generate sophisticated,
original text, audio, and video, and the power to mimic individuals in a manner so
convincing that people will not know what is real. These self-teaching AI models are
being designed to become better at what they do with every single interaction. But
they also sometimes hallucinate, and manipulate, and fabricate. And you cannot
predict what they’ll do or why they’ll do it. If Google’s search engine is the modern-
day Library of Alexandria, the new AI will be a mercurial prophet.
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From the May 2018 issue: The era of fake video begins
Generative artificial intelligence is advancing with unbelievable speed, and will be

applied across nearly every discipline and industry. Tech giants—including Alphabet
(which owns Google), Amazon, Meta (which owns Facebook), and Microsoft—are
locked in a race to weave AI into existing products, such as maps, email, social
platforms, and photo software.
The technocultural norms and habits that have seized us during the triple revolution
of the internet, smartphones, and the social web are themselves in need of a thorough
correction. Too many people have allowed these technologies to simply wash over
them. We would be wise to rectify the errors of the recent past, but also to anticipate
—and proactively shape—what the far more radical technology now emerging will
mean for our lives, and how it will come to remake our civilization.
Corporations that stand to profit off this new technology are already memorizing the
platitudes necessary to wave away the critics. They’ll use sunny jargon like “human
augmentation” and “human-centered artificial intelligence.” But these terms are as
shallow as they are abstract. What’s coming stands to dwarf every technological
creation in living memory: the internet, the personal computer, the atom bomb. It
may well be the most consequential technology in all of human history.
P
eople are notoriously terrible at predicting the future, and often slow to
recognize a revolution—even when it is already under way. But the span of
time between when new technology emerges and when standards and norms
are hardened is often short. The Wild West, in other words, only lasts for so long.
Eventually, the railroads standardize time; incandescent bulbs beat out arc lamps; the
dream of the open web dies.
The window for effecting change in the realm of AI is still open. Yet many of those
who have worked longest to establish guardrails for this new technology are despairing
that the window is nearly closed.
Generative AI, just like search engines, telephones, and locomotives before it, will
allow us to do things with levels of efficiency so profound, it will seem like magic. We
may see whole categories of labor, and in some cases entire industries, wiped away
with startling speed. The utopians among us will view this revolution as an
opportunity to outsource busywork to machines for the higher purpose of human
self-actualization. This new magic could indeed create more time to be spent on
matters more deserving of our attention—deeper quests for knowledge, faster routes
to scientific discovery, extra time for leisure and with loved ones. It may also lead to
widespread unemployment and the loss of professional confidence as a more
competent AI looks over our shoulder.
Annie Lowrey: Before AI takes over, make plans to give everyone money
Government officials, along with other well-intentioned leaders, are groping toward
ethical principles for artificial intelligence—see, for example, the White House’s
“Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.” (Despite the clunky title, the intention is for
principles that will protect human rights, though the question of civil rights for
machines will eventually arise.) These efforts are necessary but not enough to meet the
moment.
We should know by now that neither the government’s understanding of new

technologies nor self-regulation by tech behemoths can adequately keep pace with the
speed of technological change or Silicon Valley’s capacity to seek profit and scale at the
expense of societal and democratic health. What defines this next phase of human
history must begin with the individual.
Just as the Industrial Revolution sparked transcendentalism in the U.S. and

romanticism in Europe—both movements that challenged conformity and prioritized
truth, nature, and individualism—today we need a cultural and philosophical
revolution of our own. This new movement should prioritize humans above machines
and reimagine human relationships with nature and with technology, while still
advancing what this technology can do at its best. Artificial intelligence will,
unquestionably, help us make miraculous, lifesaving discoveries. The danger lies in
outsourcing our humanity to this technology without discipline, especially as it
eclipses us in apperception. We need a human renaissance in the age of intelligent
machines.
I
n the face of world-altering invention, with the power of today’s tech barons
so concentrated, it can seem as though ordinary people have no hope of
influencing the machines that will soon be cognitively superior to us all. But
there is tremendous power in defining ideals, even if they ultimately remain out of
reach. Considering all that is at stake, we have to at least try.
From the June 2023 issue: Never give artificial intelligence the
nuclear codes
Transparency should be a core tenet in the new human exchange of ideas—people

ought to disclose whenever an artificial intelligence is present or has been used in
communication. This ground rule could prompt discipline in creating more-human
(and human-only) spaces, as well as a less anonymous web. Any journalist can tell you
that anonymity should be used only as a last resort and in rare scenarios for the public
good. We would benefit from cultural norms that expect people to assert not just their
opinions but their actual names too.
Now is the time, as well, to recommit to making deeper connections with other
people. Live videochat can collapse time and distance, but such technologies are a
poor substitute for face-to-face communication, especially in settings where creative
collaboration or learning is paramount. The pandemic made this painfully clear.
Relationships cannot and should not be sustained in the digital realm alone, especially
as AI further erodes our understanding of what is real. Tapping a “Like” button is not
friendship; it’s a data point. And a conversation with an artificial intelligence is one-
sided—an illusion of connection.
Someday soon, a child may not have just one AI “friend,” but more AI friends than
human ones. These companions will not only be built to surveil the humans who use
them; they will be tied inexorably to commerce—meaning that they will be designed
to encourage engagement and profit. Such incentives warp what relationships ought
to be.
W
riters of fiction—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Rod Serling, José Saramago—
have for generations warned of doppelgängers that might sap our
humanity by stealing a person’s likeness. Our new world is a wormhole to
that uncanny valley.
Whereas the first algorithmic revolution involved using people’s personal data to
reorder the world for them, the next will involve our personal data being used not just
to splinter our shared sense of reality, but to invent synthetic replicas. The profit-
minded music-studio exec will thrill to the notion of an AI-generated voice with AI-
generated songs, not attached to a human with intellectual-property rights. Artists,
writers, and musicians should anticipate widespread impostor efforts and fight against
them. So should all of us. One computer scientist recently told me she’s planning to
create a secret code word that only she and her elderly parents know, so that if they
ever hear her voice on the other end of the phone pleading for help or money, they’ll
know whether it’s been generated by an AI trained on her publicly available lectures to
sound exactly like her and scam them.
We should resist overreliance on tools that dull the

wisdom of our own aesthetics and intellect.
Today’s elementary-school children are already learning not to trust that anything they
see or hear through a screen is real. But they deserve a modern technological and
informational environment built on Enlightenment values: reason, human autonomy,
and the respectful exchange of ideas. Not everything should be recorded or shared;
there is individual freedom in embracing ephemerality. More human interactions
should take place only between the people involved; privacy is key to preserving our
humanity.
Finally, a more existential consideration requires our attention, and that is the degree
to which the pursuit of knowledge orients us inward or outward. The artificial
intelligence of the near future will supercharge our empirical abilities, but it may also
dampen our curiosity. We are at risk of becoming so enamored of the synthetic worlds
that we create—all data sets, duplicates, and feedback loops—that we cease to peer
into the unknown with any degree of true wonder or originality.
We should trust human ingenuity and creative intuition, and resist overreliance on
tools that dull the wisdom of our own aesthetics and intellect. Emerson once wrote
that Isaac Newton “used the same wit to weigh the moon that he used to buckle his
shoes.” Newton, I’ll point out, also used that wit to invent a reflecting telescope, the
beginnings of a powerful technology that has allowed humankind to squint at the
origins of the universe. But the spirit of Emerson’s idea remains crucial: Observing the
world, taking it in using our senses, is an essential exercise on the path to knowledge.
We can and should layer on technological tools that will aid us in this endeavor, but
never at the expense of seeing, feeling, and ultimately knowing for ourselves.
A future in which overconfident machines seem to hold the answers to all of life’s
cosmic questions is not only dangerously misguided, but takes away that which makes
us human. In an age of anger, and snap reactions, and seemingly all-knowing AI, we
should put more emphasis on contemplation as a way of being. We should embrace
an unfinished state of thinking, the constant work of challenging our preconceived
notions, seeking out those with whom we disagree, and sometimes still not knowing.
We are mortal beings, driven to know more than we ever will or ever can.
The passage of time has the capacity to erase human knowledge: Whole languages
disappear; explorers lose their feel for crossing the oceans by gazing at the stars.
Technology continually reshapes our intellectual capacities. What remains is the fact
that we are on this planet to seek knowledge, truth, and beauty—and that we only get
so much time to do it.
A
s a small child in Concord, Massachusetts, I could see Emerson’s home
from my bedroom window. Recently, I went back for a visit. Emerson’s house
has always captured my imagination. He lived there for 47 years until his
death, in 1882. Today, it is maintained by his descendants and a small staff dedicated
to his legacy. The house is some 200 years old, and shows its age in creaks and stains.
But it also possesses a quality that is extraordinarily rare for a structure of such historic
importance: 141 years after his death, Emerson’s house still feels like his. His books
are on the shelves. One of his hats hangs on a hook by the door. The original William
Morris wallpaper is bright green in the carriage entryway. A rendering of Francesco
Salviati’s The Three Fates, holding the thread of destiny, stands watch over the mantel
in his study. This is the room in which Emerson wrote Nature. The table where he sat
to write it is still there, next to the fireplace.
From the October 1883 issue: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Historic Notes of
Life and Letters in Massachusetts’
Standing in Emerson’s study, I thought about how no technology is as good as going

to the place, whatever the destination. No book, no photograph, no television
broadcast, no tweet, no meme, no augmented reality, no hologram, no AI-generated
blueprint or fever dream can replace what we as humans experience. This is why you
make the trip, you cross the ocean, you watch the sunset, you hear the crickets, you
notice the phase of the moon. It is why you touch the arm of the person beside you as
you laugh. And it is why you stand in awe at the Jardin des Plantes, floored by the
universe as it reveals its hidden code to you.
This article appears in the July/August 2023 print edition with the headline “In Defense of
Humanity.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for
supporting The Atlantic.

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6/6/23, 8:32 AM A Defense of Humanity in the Age of AI - The Atlantic

July/August 2023 Issue

Explore the July/August 2023 Issue

Hell Is Other People’s Vacations

Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think

The father-daughter trip of a lifetime

Generative artificial intelligence is advancing with unbelievable speed, and will be

We should know by now that neither the government’s understanding of new

Just as the Industrial Revolution sparked transcendentalism in the U.S. and

Transparency should be a core tenet in the new human exchange of ideas—people

We should resist overreliance on tools that dull the

Standing in Emerson’s study, I thought about how no technology is as good as going

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